Doesn't necessarilty make them wrong either. Maybe convining is a word with the wrong connotations that I blindly believe what I read.

"I found that their conclusions were feasable and had merit when weighed up against other papers I had read, I then independently came to the conclusion that global warming is true and that it is most likely that humans are causing it".

I'm more skeptical in this domain of global warming than you Andre. In the business of data collection human factors compell recorded values.

How good a science is global warming?

Perhaps there is a measuring rod to decide the overall value of peer reviewed papers on the topic of global warming. If so compelled we could look at various topics in physics, and count how many papers, relatively, are devoted to the criticism of the methods or data of another paper. These numbers could be compared to those devoted to the study of global warming.

Perhaps there is a measuring rod to decide the overall value of peer reviewed papers on the topic of global warming. If so compelled we could look at various topics in physics, and count how many papers, relatively, are devoted to the criticism of the methods or data of another paper. These numbers could be compared to those devoted to the study of global warming.

In my opinion it doesn't really matter whether it's caused by us or not, what matters is that it's likely to lead to negative consequences and that we have the means to mitigate these effects. Even if global warming was natural we should try to prevent it if we could.

I see. So you believe that humans altering the climate of the earth by using energy sources that are convenient is wrong. But even if human produced co2 is not responsible for global warming humans should alter the earths climate for their own convenience? Do you really think that makes any sense?

Andre is a well read scientifically minded individual. He has been showing evidence that he finds contradicts AGW theories while most everyone responding to him seem to more or less assume that he is ignorant. I'd have to say that the blind faith in political advocates seems to be sitting more on the shoulders of the liberals in this thread. If you would like to represent your (and my) political philosophy well I suggest you start acting more maturely, else you set yourself in the same catagory of political thinkers as the dittoheads.

Thanks for the support, all. However I still sense that the quantity of research is more important than the quality of research. How did Einstein put it again as reaction to "100 authors against Einstein"?

Now here is http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf [Broken] about the "amplification" factor of CO2 during the glacial temination. The last sentence:

The radiative forcing due to CO2 may serve as an amplifier of initial orbital forcing, which is then further amplified by fast atmospheric feedbacks (39) that are also at work for the present day and future climate.

Now what is that? Idea - hypothesis - theory -physical law? Since it is based on observation of a phenomenon it's absolutely fair to call it a hypothesis.

But hypotheses require testing before it is accepted as theory. Note that engineers have spent many semesters to master the obnoxious behavior of closed loop feedback systems. So you can't really assess a single page hypothesis about possible feedback behavior as thoroughly tested on its physical feasibility. And as far as I know no follow up study has ever been published attempting to model this assumed isotope - CO2 interaction as a positive feedback construction and if I try it myself I can see why.

Not very good at all, no matter which side of the argument you are on. The fact is that our planets climate is an EXTREMELY complex system which makes it very difficult to model and study. There are hundreds if not thousands of factors that need to be considered when developing relationships between greenhouse gas content and the amount of internal energy in the surface of the planet. Has the IPCC and EIA considered them all? I doubt it.

Currently, as far as I have researched, there is a LOT more evidence supporting climate change than not. This may change in the future as we better understand our planets climate and history along with developing better models, but from what I have seen and witnessed, the worlds climate is changing and we should do something about it.

Even if the climate isn't changing from greenhouse gas emissions, then what is the harm of becoming a more environmentally friendly society anyway?

I see. So you believe that humans altering the climate of the earth by using energy sources that are convenient is wrong. But even if human produced co2 is not responsible for global warming humans should alter the earths climate for their own convenience? Do you really think that makes any sense?

I think this just about sums it all up for me. The point is all we know for sure is that the planet IS warming. There IS a possiblity that we are causing it. We also know that warming is generally a bad thing. However as the system is so complex it is difficult to determine the extent (if at all) the impact we are having.

The choices are:

Wait to see and continue research, but do nothing about the potential problem?
Contine research and progressively move towards a cleaner source of fuel?

As Topher mentioned what is the harm of moving towards a greener society anyway? Not only that but when one of the options carries the risk of permanent damage (which may happen anyway who knows) In this sitation I would tend to choose prudence and err on the side of caution.

It's a pascals wager sort of thing. We have nothing to lose by continuing research but making a progressive attemt to switch to a more sustainable fuel source. In the event that we are the cause of global warming we win. If we arent the cause of global warming, then we havent lost as the research is good for when it becomes uneconomical to use fossil fuels.

If we continue along the route that TheStatutoryApe implies in the quote. If we are the cause, then by the time we realise it could be too late. If we arent the casue then there is no problem, we just have to start researching alterative fuels sometime in the future.

Environmentally friendly / efficient is a contradiction to what global warming nuts actually want to accomplish. Carbon credits, sequestration, blocking the suns rays are all absolute garbage and will serve only to cripple our economy.

Simply put we have no real alternative to coal since nuclear is still associated with death. Cut off coal and we're back to the stone age.

Environmentally friendly / efficient is a contradiction to what global warming nuts actually want to accomplish. Carbon credits, sequestration, blocking the suns rays are all absolute garbage and will serve only to cripple our economy.

Simply put we have no real alternative to coal since nuclear is still associated with death. Cut off coal and we're back to the stone age.

Now those nuts (on both sides) are what p*** me off about this, the answer is not to go back to living in caves and eating soil, nor just to ignore the situation and carry on burning fossil fuels merrily. The answer comes from investing in research, engineering and new technology.

A carbon offset is acutally a good idea if implememnted correctly. The thing is, anything like this is going to cost people money, which is where the real issue lies. At the moment in the UK we are taxed to oblivion on fuel, I wouldn't mind so much if that tax was actually going to help the situation, I simply suspect its going in to the kitty to build more MP's a moat or pay for their porn.

This is an analogy to the climate change debate.
What if an asteroid was spotted by astronomers that was big enough to do major damage to the earth's population and it might be on a collision course with the earth. Lets say it was about twenty years out and also the astronomers were not sure that it would impact the earth but it would be close. Should we prepare to do something? Should we prepare to meet the climate change problem even if we are not sure?

Well, you could of course think about no-regret measures, anything that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels and that does not shoot oneself in foot.

But the main lesson is that fear rules as it has always done in the history of mankind. In another decade we may wonder why we lost the opportunity to go nuclear, well fear ruled there too and 'weather cooking' has been one of all times.

If we continue along the route that TheStatutoryApe implies in the quote. If we are the cause, then by the time we realise it could be too late. If we arent the casue then there is no problem, we just have to start researching alterative fuels sometime in the future.

I am all for alternative energy and getting rid of coal and oil as energy sources. Coal is probably one of the worst sources of energy we can use from what I have read. To not pollute the environment and acheive 'energy independence' are the best arguments for shifting away from oil and coal. Unfortunately they are not as sexy as 'The sky is falling!'

I just like to see more honest and respectable discussion and argument. Warming of the planet is not bad for the planet it is bad for humans. Saying that allowing the planet to warm for our convenience of energy choices is wrong but altering the planets natural climate to be more hospitable, for our convenience, is a good idea is a rather contradictory and poor argument. Either you are ok with altering the climate for our convenience or you aren't and saying its to save the planet is just plain dishonest.

Yes, I agree that it isn't good at all. For one, climate modeling is extremely complex. It isn't just because the variables are unknown; actually doing the modeling involves a huge amount of computing power. Since it obviously isn't possible to include every single water and air molecule, scientists have to split the atmosphere and ocean into different "chunks" and assume that the chunk is a single, monolithic entity. The smaller the chunks, the more accurate the modeling, but the more intensive the required computing power. Since the parameters--like how much rain forms given a certain temperature, humidity, and aerosol concentration--are not well-known, different sets of parameters have to be tested. To see which set is more reasonable, simulations are run on past climate to see how well it predicts the current climate in a process called "hindcasting". It's a complicated process, and one that isn't too accurate.

I don't know if any of you have heard of Climateprediction.net, but if not, read this:

It's a distributed computing project that involves predicting the climate of the 21st century. They've a lot of computing power at their disposal, and have produced some interesting results: http://climateprediction.net/content/scientific-papers [Broken]

Basically, there's a huge variation in predictions of climate sensitivity, ranging from 2-11 degrees. Much of the higher estimates have been ruled out by hindcasting, but none of the models predict a sensitivity of less than 2 degrees, and certainly none of them say the climate will remain unchanged if we keep on burning fossil fuels. One thing to note is that the scientists running this experiment are well aware of the inherent uncertainties and dedicated a paper to calculating them. Climate modeling isn't ESP research; errors are estimated just as they are in every experiment, and you won't hear a scientist proclaiming global warming as real if the forecasted temperature rise isn't significantly larger than the error.